The affordable seven-seater war is on, and right now the triumvirate locked in battle are the Honda BR-V, the Toyota Rush, and the Mitsubishi Xpander. Recently, the latter has just achieved a feat that may well put it at the top of its class in one vital aspect.
Mitsubishi Motors Philippines, with the help of the Automobile Association of the Philippines (AAP), recently tested the fuel efficiency of the Xpander GLX MT and GLS Sport AT variants. These were driven along SCTEX and TPLEX with four "other competitive models" using the same parameters as the Department of Energy's eco test.
Over an average distance of 236.58km, the manual Xpander netted 21.01 km/L while the automatic did 22.94 km/L. The unnamed competitors (some of which were diesels) didn't do nearly as well—the third model did 19.8km/L while the least efficient only got 17.4 km/L.
That's fairly impressive, especially when you consider that the automatic is only a four-speed. It would seem that Mitsu's 1.5-liter DOHC gasoline engine, with its 103hp and 141Nm, is an economical powertrain. Having said that, we'd be curious to see if the results are similar with a full load of passengers and cargo.
